Summary

January 8 – January 20
Sorry I haven’t posted in a while…things have been picking up with studies, projects and exams!! So here is an overview of the last two weeks:

I have been making a lot of head way in my Spanish classes and can now carry on a conversation with my host family! I also had an exam on the 20 in Spanish and feel that I did pretty well! I have my own Spanish teacher apart from the other students and she talks in zero English which is good for me but is often a stretch and is mentally exhausting at times to keep up with what she is saying.

I locked my keys in my room AGAIN! But this time I just asked if they had a spare key for the lock…and of course that was the only key so up I went again over the wall only this time while Raquel and Sarai were watching and giggling at the whole ordeal. I got the keys and didn’t want to crawl through the window or over the wall again so I asked Raquel to unlock it for me. It was quite the comical scene.

We’ve started some video projects lately and I will soon have a video blog of what a typical day at the Nehemiah Center is like and you will be able to see what my world done here looks like! Next we’ll be doing a video poem and I have chosen “The Promise of Peace” by Robinson Jeffers which is a poem that can really relate to the history of Nicaragua.
Dan and I played basketball with some of the kids at the school near the Nehemiah Center and now whenever we go over to the school we have many of the kids saying hi to us and asking us our names.

OH YES! Last Saturday, the 14th of February, I played in my first official soccer game here. I got the jersey and everything and played with 10 other guys in a league playoff game. All of us were North Americans except one man who was Nicaraguan. The other team was all Nicaraguan and be honest…I was thinking, “Crud…this is going to be hard. They have mad foot skills and are wicked fast and we are all white…except one of us.” It started to look like I thought it would when by halftime we were losing 3-1. I felt bad because I am out of shape and was NOT smart and hadn’t drank any water that day and was really out of energy and I felt responsible for at least 1 of the goals. At halftime we hydrated ourselves with some quality di-hydrogen oxide and went over what we needed to do to keep up. We switched sides, had the wind in our favor and new energy set out to show the Nicas that not all Gringos are bad at futbol. We made some position changes that really worked and one of our guys, Dan, scored a hat trick with 3 goals in a row and we ended up winning 4-3!! It was “pretty dang exciting”! After the game I went home, showered and got ready for the party at Alex and Maria’s house where one of the other students, Dilaun, is staying. In Nicaragua, 14 February is not just for lovers and boyfriend and girlfriends but is celebrated as a day of friendship. At Alex and Maria’s house we mingled with North Americans and Nicaraguans alike and played games with mixed groups to make the competition a little more difficult. My group of 4 had to present 6 memorized Bible verses to the whole group. At first they had to be about friendship and I was having a hard time thinking of any references for friendship verses. Apparently they changed it to ANY verse and forgot to tell me about the change. So to impress everyone there I chose a very long verse I could remember in Spanish and when we presented our verses I said the reference, paused for dramatic effect, and then said, “Jesus lluró”…which is John 11:35 “Jesus wept”. Everyone burst out laughing and so did I and enjoyed making everyone laugh. Everyone had to say who they were and what they did here in Nicaragua. It was great day and I even brought friend Blas to the party and we all had a great time.

Only by His strength,
Stephen

P.S. - Please feel free to leave comments on these posts as I would greatly enjoy hearing any of your responses and/or questions. Each post has the option of leaving a comment at the bottom of the post!

P.P.S.-If any of you would like to write me via snail mail (which I would absolutely LOVE!) here is the address for here at the Nehemiah Center. It is:

Stephen Winkelman
Apartado 1076, Managua, Nicaragua

*This post is not necessarily in chronological order